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Oct 7, 3:32 PM EDT

Increased security leads to more agent assaults, bolder smugglers

By STEPHANIE INNES
Arizona Daily Star

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- When he was 16, Gonzalo Llamas left his home in Zacatecas, Mexico, and illegally crossed the border by paying $20 to use an American citizen's passport.

Though the passport holder was older and balding, Llamas made it across and began his new life cleaning restaurants for $9 a job.

Now 50, Llamas is a U.S. citizen and owns a construction company in San Diego. And he wants the border sealed. The reason? Violent crime.

"You have your good people and your bad people," he says. "I'm really open-minded for people to make a better life for themselves without causing problems to anyone. But with a few bad ones, we all lose. You have to have some control."

It's a common perception along the border - more security means more safety. But the opposite could be true.

Along with tougher enforcement has come a spike in violence against those who police the international boundary. Assaults on U.S. Border Patrol agents, including rock-throwings, doubled from 2004 to 2005 as the number of agents increased by 4 percent, and now are occurring at a rate of more than two a day, federal data show.

As security tightens, smugglers dig tunnels under fences, disguise themselves as members of the Mexican military, and, in general, become bolder, authorities say. Around Yuma, they've thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails and fired paintball guns and real firearms at agents.

In response, agents are firing non-lethal pepperballs. They also use their firearms, though U.S. Customs and Border Protection won't disclose how many illegal immigrants have been killed by federal officers.

"It's a battle at the border," says Tyler Emblem, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol's Search, Trauma and Rescue unit in the Yuma Sector. "It's not like five years ago. When we showed up, they would run. It's making it harder for these smuggling organizations to make a living, and we are the enemy."

Aside from brazen smugglers, it's difficult to predict what will happen to crime and violence in the United States if the border is sealed. Some worry more fences will create social unrest. Others say fences and other security measures have dramatically decreased overall crime rates but moved crime to more remote areas that have less security.

Farther east, in Cochise County, Sheriff Larry Dever says his deputies now expect a fight when they see smugglers, who often are armed with high-capacity assault weapons with orders to protect their cargo at all costs.

Failure to deliver is not acceptable and many who fail are executed, he says.

"Their way of doing traditional business, in this case smuggling, has been disrupted, and they take a hit financially," Border Patrol spokesman Todd Fraser says. "Their response is that they become increasingly frustrated and turn to violence to get their smuggled loads through."

Columbus, N.M., farmer James Johnson, of WH Johnson & Sons, owns 3,000 acres that abut the international border.

He's been threatened and has had guns pulled on him three times - most recently in 2002. In 1991, Johnson's father and uncle were held at gunpoint by two illegal immigrants who stole their car. Johnson used to carry his own gun but stopped after he says federal officials warned him he was being watched by Mexican smugglers.

It's common for people to drive through the flimsy barbed-wire fence that marks the border and flatten his crops. One car recently ended up in a drainage canal. Often, the drive-throughs include high-speed pursuits.

The wide-open border is disheartening, Johnson says - he'd like to see a security fence. It wouldn't solve the problem, he says, but it would help.

New Mexico has 1.2 miles of border fence - near the town of Sunland Park. The rest of the state is divided from Mexico by fences made from three strands of barbed wire, which often are cut or run over by drivers.

Paul Armijo, police chief in Columbus, says the National Guard has helped drastically reduce vehicle pursuits in the area. But the soldiers' presence has given many Columbus residents the false impression that crime will end, he says. The police force has a tough time keeping up with the problems of a border town, he says, particularly the level of drug activity.

What's needed, Armijo says, is a better-working plan to allow Mexicans to cross the border and work legally. He also wants the United States to teach Mexico how to do more to help its own people.

"The more barrier you put up, the more force they are going to use to get across and you are just asking for trouble," he says. "When people are desperate to go make a better life, a better living, they are going to do whatever it takes."

On July 11, the U.S. State Department issued a warning to border visitors that drug-related violence had increased and showed no sign of abating. Most of the violence, it said, had been aimed at drug-trafficking organizations, criminal-justice officials and journalists.

Plummeting crime rates in border cities such as San Diego, El Paso and Laredo, Texas in the last 10 years mirror a national trend - crime rates dropped across the country in the same time period, notes Pedro H. Albuquerque, an assistant professor of economics at Texas A&M International in Laredo.

His research shows that not only are crime rates dropping in border cities, they actually are lower than in most U.S. cities. The murder rate in Laredo in 2001 was 4.4 per 100,000 people, for example, while the average for U.S. cities in 2001 was 5.6 per 100,000.

"Basically, law enforcement on the Mexican side is not efficient. They don't enforce the law. But the American side has been quite successful in keeping groups out," he says.

Some ranchers and farmers in open border areas like New Mexico say they worry about their safety, but dozens of residents interviewed along the international line give this advice: Don't look for trouble and you won't find it.

After years of hard work in the United States, Gonzalo Llamas feels much the same. He says the border has changed since he crossed illegally in the 1970s.

"Before the fence went up in 1994, it was just a barbed-wire fence lying on the ground. We'd go over and eat tacos in Mexico," Llamas says. "Now, the border has become a place for criminals. I mind my own business. I stay on this side."